Second, read all of your notices. Even though I’m supposedly on the “paperless” plan for several of my bills, I still receive oodles of statements and messages from these companies. Most of them are completely unimportant to me…

After a while, it’s very easy to become numb to all of it. Don’t. Open every one, read it over, and handle it appropriately. Yes, most of them will go in the trash can. Yes, you’ll often feel like you just wasted fifteen minutes of your life.

But for every fifty useless missives that you read, one will be very important.

We can stress strongly enough how important it is to at least look over your statements.

Sure, if you’re a customer at a bank, you probably get gobs and gobs of mail from them every month. Us? We send minimal mail. And you could get even less if you sign up for e-statements.

But even e-statements are important. You may have important noticed posted to your account under the e-statement system, so make sure you check it at least once a month.